This is the Cleveland Heights police blotter, redacted by Deputy Chief Brad Sudyk on Dec. 18 while a reporter reviewed the information. The city did not provide the report for 16 days.
(Adam Ferrise, NEOMG)

CLEVELAND
HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Cleveland Heights police took 16 days to make public a incident report about an armed robbery they had tried to conceal, and did so only after an attorney representing Northeast Ohio Media Group complained to one of the city's assistant law directors.

At a Dec. 20 meeting, attorney David Marburger, regarded as an expert on Ohio's open records laws, presented Assistant Law Director Jim Juliano with decisions in which the Ohio Supreme Court had ruled that incident reports are to be made
immediately available to the public.

Juliano checked with the police department and told Marburger that two of five reports requested that day were completed and could be provided,
along with a related 9-1-1 call. But after the meeting, the police department
again failed to provide the reports, releasing only a CD with the recording of a 9-1-1 call.

The department, which has a history of hiding crimes from the public, released the report on the Dec. 18 armed robbery of a high school student on Thursday, but redacted the name of the teen who was eventually arrested in connection with that case and in a Dec. 7 robbery.

Sgt. Ernest
Williams, assigned to provide police reports to the reporter, later refused to
provide the media group with a copy of the incident report, citing orders from
Chief Jeffrey Robertson. Williams declined to say why the chief had issued the
order.

The reporter
waited four hours to question Robertson about his order, but the chief did not
emerge from his office.

What the
deputy chief did not know at the time was that the reporter already had written
down some details.

The reporter
later called the victim's home and spoke with his mother, who explained what
happened to her 16-year-old son. The media group is not releasing the victim's name.

The incident report gives more details
of the robbery and says the teen who was arrested may also have been involved in
the Dec. 7 armed robbery of two women exiting the Katz Club Diner.

The report
says that the victim was walking with two
friends on Washington Boulevard and Thayne Road about 3:40 p.m. Dec. 17 when a 15-year-old boy
approached the group.

The four
talked for about 10 minutes and at some point the 15-year-old said "Nothing personal, but I
need your phone," the report says. The victim told police he didn't think the boy
was serious at first and replied that he didn't have a phone.

According to the report, the
15-year-old then demanded the 16-year-old's wallet. The boy gave him the $50 he
had in his wallet and the 15-year-old checked the victim's pockets, finding
the phone, the report says.

The
15-year-old then pulled out a silver handgun and loaded a bullet into the gun's
chamber. The victim then handed over a Galaxy 4 phone. The 15-year-old also
told the group he would "shoot the police" if they became involved, the report
says.

Investigators
filed aggravated robbery charges the same day in Cuyahoga County Juvenile
Court, reports say.

The following
day, investigators searched the 15-year-old boy's home on East 73rd Street in Cleveland and
found one live bullet for a 9-millimeter gun and clothing. Officers arrested
the boy at a friend's home on Yorkshire Road, where officers found an Ohio
State sweatshirt that witnesses said he was wearing during the robbery.

Justin Artis, 22, and Willie Parker, 19, of
Cleveland Heights, were charged in Cleveland Heights Municipal Court on suspicion of
aggravated robbery. Artis was arrested on the warrant Dec. 23. Parker has not
been found by police.

Reports say the men approached two women
walking from the diner to their cars about 12:30 a.m. Dec. 7. One of the men
grabbed one of the women's purses and demanded she give it to him. He pulled on
the purse and then pulled out a black handgun. The woman told
police she released the bag.

Another man approached the other woman and
demanded her bag. She told police that he said told her not be afraid and that they
were only after their money. The two struggled and the man grabbed her purse
and fled.

Police later found most of the stolen items
scattered along the street. The women said the only missing items were an iPhone, a AAA
card and a credit card, which the owner canceled.

Reports say one of the purses was sent to the
state crime lab to be tested for DNA.

Cleveland
Heights police have a history of concealing crimes from the public.

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